Mystery of Mr. Jessop (24 page)

“No,” agreed Carton, “but, after all, in my profession I am known, I am expert. It is not so easy as all that to become a croupier of the first rank. It needs a training; practice, too. When I return to Monte, I have always to take a refresher course – a week or longer in the school – so that they may satisfy themselves I have not gone stale. So if it happens that here a nice little party is arranged, one is often glad to call me in. Naturally, as it is England, such a nice little party is always for charity – after all, in spite of all the rules in England one can do anything if it is for charity.”

“Not anything,” protested Ulyett, a little hurt. “There are limits.”

“I have not noticed them,” said Carton seriously. “One can go with a box for money from door to door and it is O.K. if it is just a little for charity and much for – for expenses. So at the parties here I never receive a fee, only a cheque for expenses. I do not mind, for expenses are bigger than a fee. At this party I tell you of, the play was high and fast – higher and faster even than I am used to, and I am no novice. It was one August, and it happened to be fine and warm that evening. It was England, but there was no rain at all. In an interval I went outside to refresh myself in the open air in the garden, and I found the summerhouse. It occurred to me at once – well, there it is; Irene's family is large and their house is small. You understand?”

“Trespassing,” observed Ulyett. “Never mind that. Been to many of these parties lately?”

Carton shook his head.

“There was a certain unpleasantness at one,” he explained. “At Monte it happens, too, but there it can be dealt with. Here it became a scandal. In England, a scandal, that is serious. In France, it would be merely a sensation. A sensation is forgotten when it ceases to be a sensation. A scandal remains. So now, for the big parties – finished. The little ones remain. They are more intimate,
chic
, select. But for me less useful. They do not care to pay so large – expenses. The play is not so fast; even an amateur can deal with it. So I go more rarely. Sometimes, it is true, but not often. When there are not to be more than twenty or thirty present, the expert is not so necessary. An amateur can manage – perhaps.''

Ulyett pressed for more details, but Carton was reluctant to give them. He suggested that such questions seemed to have little bearing on the investigation of the murder, and Ulyett retorted that that was by no means certain.

“Here's one point,” Ulyett said. “Did you ever see Mr. Jessop at any of these affairs?”

“That I cannot say,” Carton answered. “I am not introduced to the guests. I do not know their names unless I happen to hear them. Their faces, yes; those I know. I remember faces. It is part of our profession, part of our training; one must recognise again those who previously have been incorrect.” He smiled. “Once I recognised in a personage of the highest rank one of the guests at parties where I had officiated. But I will not give his name. No. Nor will you ask it, for these little affairs are entirely correct. 

On that I have informed myself. I paid even, so as to be sure. A lawyer. He put it in writing. It is perfectly correct so long as it remains private, select,
chic
. That is the English common sense. A thing may be quite wrong when it is done coarsely, brutally perhaps, by poor, ignorant people, and quite correct and lawful when it is done with
chic
, with style, by those who understand how to behave. No strangers must be admitted, nothing to eat or drink must be sold. Naturally, it is there. Champagne, whisky, sandwiches, but one does not pay. Also, the play is perfectly O.K. For that I answer with my professional reputation.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Ulyett. “Who was the swell you say you recognised?”

“Oh, for that, excuse me. One has one's discretions.”

“That's all right,” said Ulyett. “Quite all right. Never mind it then. Now ” He produced more photographs, handfuls of them. “We want to know if Mr. Jessop played. It may be a great help to know that. Do you recognise his picture among these?”

Carton picked it out at once.

“A gentleman who played high, a gentleman it was a pleasure to see at one's table,” he said. “But he was not lucky. A courageous player, not a great one. He was obstinate. When the really gifted player finds he is not in the vein, he stops. This gentleman continued.”

Ulyett produced some more photographs, none of which Carton knew. But when one of the Duke of Westhaven was put before him, he looked for once a little startled. Then he shook his head with much – too much – vigour.

“Another I have never seen,” he said.

“Lying, aren't you?” asked Ulyett. “Looks bad, lying to the police. No good either. Odds are, we know. That's the Duke of Westhaven, and we have information –”

He left the sentence unfinished, the information not specified, and Carton shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, well,” he said, “if you know! After all, there is no harm. It is inside the law. But it was not a he. I do not lie – never. It was professional etiquette. I knew him as Mr. West. It was the name he gave always. I ascertained that. For one day it happened that I saw him in public and I recognised him. A duke. It is something, a duke. Also he is enormously rich, since others have built houses on his land that before was only sand-heaps. But his play – oh, miserable, paltry, of an inconceivable triviality. He would go pale to see the sums the plucky Mr. Jessop risked. It was as though he could not bear it, though the money was not his.”

“Mr. West, eh? Got to remember that,” grunted Ulyett.

Then he produced a photograph of Denis Chenery. Carton recognised it, but did not think Denis played much, unless it was at the card-tables.

“With them I have nothing to do,” Carton explained with a slight air of contempt. “The little ball runs true, but with cards –” And an expressive shrug of the shoulders concluded the sentence.

Yet another photograph, this time of Charley Dickson, he failed to recognise, and then he was allowed to go, though told he would presently be asked to read over and sign the statement he had just made.

“And that,” said Carton resignedly, “puts the hat on my chance of getting the boarding-house of my aunt at a nephew's price.”

But Ulyett promised they would do their best to keep any mention of Miss Irene's name becoming public, and so Carton departed, a trifle consoled.

When Carton had gone and they were alone together, Ulyett turned doubtfully to Bobby.

“He tells a good straight story,” he said, “only for one thing – notice it?”

“About the pistol?” Bobby asked.

“Yes. You are sure the girl said he showed it to her? You said so in your report, didn't you?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Bobby. “I'm quite clear about that.”

“Have to look into it,” Ulyett repeated. “Wouldn't be the first time what looked like a good, straight, convincing yarn slipped up on some little detail.”

“Might be some explanation, sir, I suppose,” suggested Bobby.

“Have to look into it,” repeated Ulyett. “Check up on his Monte record, too. Mustn't tell them there we suspect him, though, because we don't – yet. Have to put it we want him as a witness and is he trustworthy? The Cliftonville end as well. Anyhow, Carton's cleared up one point for us. His story explains how the duke knew Jessop played high.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, “and it may explain, too, where the duke was himself Saturday night, and why he couldn't be found, and why he won't say.”

“At one of these private gambling shows, you mean?” Ulyett said. “And doesn't want it known. Disapproves of gambling, doesn't he?”

“Yes, sir. Sponsored that last Anti-Betting Bill,” answered Bobby. “It looks as if he is so fascinated by gambling he can't leave it alone; can't quite keep away, though he is too afraid of losing to play much himself. And he tries to even up afterwards by denouncing it.”

“Queer tangled-up minds people have, haven't they?” mused Ulyett. “Now we shall have a nice little job of work trying to dig up what special show his dukeship honoured Saturday night. They keep that sort of thing as dark as possible, though. Lie like fun if there's any inquiry. Quite likely his identity wasn't known either – just went as Mr. West perhaps. You had better have another chat with him, Owen, and see what you can fish out.”

“Very good, sir,” said Bobby, with an entirely deceptive air of brisk and willing obedience. But desperately, wildly, he searched his mind for some means of evading, dodging, and avoiding, though, of course, with entire propriety, the direct order just received – a difficult feat, certainly, but one in which some juniors achieve, by a kind of innate gift, a very high degree of technical perfection. He said: “If I might make a suggestion, sir, I think the duke is a bit touchy. Didn't quite like it, I thought, that only a sergeant had come to see him. Felt a duke deserved more than a sergeant; felt he didn't care to talk freely to such a very junior rank. I do feel very strongly, sir, that an officer holding really high rank would have a much better chance of success. Someone really important,” suggested Bobby negligently. “More on his own level, sir, so to say.”

Ulyett looked coldly at Bobby.

“The work of the department can't be messed about just to suit a duke's whims,” he said with severity.

“No, sir,” agreed Bobby, shocked. “Of course not, sir. Er – or perhaps the Assist. Commish. himself. He could make it a kind of friendly call. So much better, don't you think, sir, if with a touchy gentleman like the duke any inquiry can be kept on a sort of social footing?”

“Hu-mm, er-r, ah-h,” said Ulyett, less coldly this time. A faint movement became perceptible at the corners of his mouth – not a smile; nothing like a smile; just a movement. “I'll put it to him,” he said.

“Then I will wait further instructions, sir?” Bobby asked, and Ulyett nodded.

“Better see Wynne again now,” he said. “Got to let him go, I suppose, for the time anyhow, but we'll give him a flea in the ear to take away with him.”

Wynne was duly summoned, and, being asked first why he had described himself at the Cut and Come Again as the Count de Teirney, replied with unblushing impudence that the title had been bestowed upon him by the Tsarist Government as a reward for important secret services rendered during the Great War.

“Lie,” said Ulyett dispassionately. “What have you done with the Fellows necklace?”

“Super,” said Wynne earnestly, “I won't deceive you. I've made up my mind. A clean breast of it, super, that's me.

“Well?” said Ulyett, though with no great enthusiasm.

“Super,” said Wynne, still more earnestly, “the simple truth is – I've never set eyes on the thing in my life, and never so much as heard of it till now.”

Ulyett scowled.

“You mean you have it tucked away somewhere and you think you'll get away with it presently,” he said. “Now, Wynne, my lad, you listen to me. We're on you. Mind that. We'll tail you day and night. Once a week, or oftener, we'll find an excuse – easy enough with your record – to bring you in. There won't be a job done in all England but we'll find cause to suspect you. Better come clean, my lad. Play the game with us and we'll play it with you. Turn the necklace up and we'll let you down as lightly as we can. If you don't, I'll see your life isn't worth living. Don't bother to tell me any more lies, but think it over. Kick him out now, Owen.”

“Brutality of the police,” sighed Wynne. “I'll write to the
Daily Worker
about you, you see if I don't. And me just turning over a new leaf and starting out in straight business to lead an honest life henceforth for evermore.”

Ulyett had turned to his papers again, but this was too much for him.

“You?” he repeated, quite bewildered. “You in straight business? You – an honest life?”

“That's right,” said Wynne virtuously. “No more crooked work for me. I'm changing. Honest and respectable from now on. That's me. It pays best. Furniture removing – Birmingham. Nice little business there a cousin of mine runs, and he's offered to let me in if I like it and put up some money. But he says I must get some experience first – take a job for three months and get to know the ropes. Seems hard to get a job, though, when you've no experience. Could you give me a reference to some firm you know or deal with here? Honest, sober, industrious, trustworthy – that sort of thing. Duty of the police to help an old con. make a fresh start. What about it, super?”

Ulyett stared at him and then made a gesture to Bobby, who touched Wynne gently on the shoulder.

“I don't want to obey orders literally,” he said, with a significant gesture of his foot, “but it would be a pleasure –”

“All right, all right, I'll go,” said Wynne, with some haste. At the door he said: “Don't mind, do you, if I ask some of the others for a ref?... Oh, all right.”

He disappeared, and a moment later opened the door again that he had slammed behind him in Bobby's face.

“Super,” he said, “I only wish I did know where the damn' thing is.”

With that he vanished again, and Bobby, from the doorway, watched him pass down the corridor in the company of the waiting officer whose duty it was to see him safely outside.

To Bobby, Ulyett said:

“Tough lad! Cheek and impudence enough to set up a boat-load of monkeys and then some. He's got the necklace all right.”

“Yes, sir,” responded Bobby as usual.

“Furniture-removing business indeed,” growled Ulyett. “Trying to pull our leg about Saturday.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, more heartily this time. “It reminds me, I met Mr. Dickson just now. He had some wild yarn about a racecourse gang planning to raid T.T.'s for the necklace they think he has hidden at his place.”